Nothing new in the realm of the sucky custody situation. Right now I am just trying to survive the August hell that is otherwise known as back-to-school shopping.
Don’t get me wrong, I love paper products and supplies. There is something so soothing about stacks of clean, perfect paper, packages of pens that flow in thick, smooth lines and binders that line up perfectly-like primary colored ducks in a row. I get all teary-eyed and glowy just thinking about it. Still, this annual shopping excursion hurts my head every year. It doesn’t help that I put it off until the week before school and do it in one fell swoop, so I have no one to blame but me.
First stop was Old Navy. (Memo to me: Employment at this store goes on the list of “Jobs That Would Make You Lose Your Sanity and Stick a Fork in Your Eye in Ten Seconds or Less”) Still, despite the crowds, music, and MESS that people leave after pawing through everything, Old Navy has good clothes that are budget friendly to parents of boys that can destroy a new outfit faster than you can say “American Express”.
The dress code for our school is really straight forward and boring. No denim and solid color shirts that have a collar and no logos. I LOVE IT because it is so easy, but it just doesn’t make shopping for it all that exciting, you know? Plus, shopping with a gaggle of boys is just different than shopping on your own or with girls. Getting my boys to try things on is like trying to persuade a cat to go swimming. They hate it. I finally got Christopher into an outfit and it was too big. When I told him we would have to look for something in a different size, he got huffy.
“WHAT? You mean I tried this on for NOTHING?”
“Welcome to shopping, son.”
After we finished at Old Navy we went to ShopKo (NEVER go to Wal-demort for back to school shopping. EVER. It is like entering a war zone to fight for items so picked over there are usually just folders with Sailor Moon and Garfield left on the shelves.) The selection at ShopKo was adequate for the pounds of paper supplies both kids need and new backpacks at 60% off for the kind with wheels is a smokin’ deal.
The last stop was for shoes.
I love Payless. Especially when you have boys that always seem to lose every pair of shoes they have with in a month or two of purchase (It’s damn frustrating, that.) I can’t believe how BIG they have gotten. They are both out of the kids section and into the men’s. :S
Jonathan and I disagreed on shoes. He thought the totally cute pair of American Eagle shoes I liked were “Totally girly” and I thought that the shoes he wanted for Christopher were such a painful throwback to the 80′s that I would have no choice but to start calling Christopher, “Punky Brewster”, if he purchased them.
Seriously??? LOOK AT THAT SHOE!!!!!! GAG. Am I alone, here? The one on the left is way cuter!
In the end, I just.didn’t.care. We had been shopping for 4 hours, I was dead tired, hungry, had a huge headache and was DONE. I waved the white flag, made myself acquainted with the floor, and let my husband finish the shoe shopping.
The final decisions were made and everyone was happy. (Can you tell by the final shoe selection why I feel like I am raising Calvin and Alex P. Keaton in the same household?).
James:
Christopher:
Four stores and hundreds of dollars later, we are D-O-N-E.
So…Y’all finished with your shopping?
